The following background description art may include insights, discoveries, understandings or disclosures, or associations together with disclosures not known to the relevant art prior to the present invention but provided by the present disclosure. Some such contributions disclosed herein may be specifically pointed out below, whereas other such contributions encompassed by the present disclosure the invention will be apparent from their context.
Frequency converters are used to change frequency and magnitude of electrical supplied to a load. Frequency converters have been used in Alternating Current AC motor drives. In exemplary operation, a frequency converter receives AC current from an electrical power supply and converts the frequency of the received AC current to another frequency after which the AC current is supplied to an AC electric motor. Also further parameters, for example a voltage level, of the received AC current may be changed. The AC motors are used in various applications including but not limited to fans and pumps. In many applications the use of frequency converters can provide significant energy savings compared to supplying electrical power having a constant frequency.
Known frequency converters are configured to meet specific needs of their operating environment. The operating environment may be defined by the properties of electric motors driven by the frequency converters and application areas of the electric motors. Accordingly, the frequency converter may be configured by parameters that match a specific operating environment. These parameters may be defined by properties of the equipment the frequency converter drives either directly or indirectly, for example properties of the electric motors and pumps or fans driven by the electric motor.
The development of frequency converters and the application areas can involve complexity that involves highly qualified personnel to be properly managed. However, in case of problems in operating a frequency converter, for example in case of a fault, arrival of the highly qualified personnel may introduce a delay to the operation of the frequency converter. Meanwhile, the frequency converter and its associated drive system are out of operation, which reduces efficiency of their use.
During downtime of the frequency converter productivity can be degraded in the application area of the frequency converter. For example, a downtime of the frequency converter may cause a pump driven by the frequency converter to be stopped in a desalination process, whereby supply of desalinated water may be stopped. In another example, a downtime of the frequency converter may cause a fan driven by the frequency converter to be stopped, whereby people residing within the ventilated facilities, structures of the ventilated facilities as well as industrial processes depending on the ventilation may be may be jeopardized.